Nearly three decades since the publication of the seminal "Metaphors We Live By," Cognitive Linguistics is now a mature theoretical and empirical enterprise, with a voluminous associated literature. It is arguably the most rapidly expanding school in modern linguistics, and one of the most exciting areas of research within the interdisciplinary project known as cognitive science. As such, Cognitive Linguistics is increasingly attracting a broad readership both within linguistics as well as from neighbouring disciplines including other cognitive and social sciences, and from disciplines within the humanities. This volume contains over 20 papers by leading experts in cognitive linguistics which survey the state of the art and new directions in cognitive linguistics. The volume is divided into 5 sections covering all the traditional areas of study in cognitive linguistics, as well as newer areas, including applications and extensions. Sections include: Approaches to semantics; Approaches to metaphor and blending; Approaches to grammar; Language, embodiment and cognition; Extensions and applications of cognitive linguistics."

The ability to produce and understand referring expressions is basic to human language use and human cognition. Reference comprises the ability to think of and represent objects (both real and imagined/fictional), to indicate to others which of these objects we are talking about, and to determine what others are talking about when they use a nominal expression. The articles in this volume are concerned with some of the central themes and challenges in research on reference within the cognitive sciences - philosophy (including philosophy of language and mind, logic, and formal semantics), theoretical and computational linguistics, and cognitive psychology. The papers address four basic questions: What is reference? What is the appropriate analysis of different referring forms, such as definite descriptions? How is reference resolved? and How do speaker/writers select appropriate referring forms, such as pronouns vs. full noun phrases, demonstrative vs. personal pronouns, and overt vs. null/zero pronominal forms? Some of the papers assume and build on existing theories, such as Centering Theory and the Givenness Hierarchy framework; others propose their own models of reference understanding or production. The essays examine reference from a number of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, informed by different research traditions and employing different methodologies. While the contributors to the volume were primarily trained in one of the four represented disciplines-computer science, linguistics, philosophy and psychology, and use methodologies typical of that discipline, each of them bridges more than one discipline in their methodology and/or their approach.

The Routledge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics provides a comprehensive introduction and essential reference work to cognitive linguistics. It encompasses a wide range of perspectives and approaches, covering all the key areas of cognitive linguistics and drawing on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research in pragmatics, discourse analysis, biolinguistics, ecolinguistics, evolutionary linguistics, neuroscience, language pedagogy, and translation studies. The forty-three chapters, written by international specialists in the field, cover four major areas: • Basic theories and hypotheses, including cognitive semantics, cognitive grammar, construction grammar, frame semantics, natural semantic metalanguage, and word grammar; • Central topics, including embodiment, image schemas, categorization, metaphor and metonymy, construal, iconicity, motivation, constructionalization, intersubjectivity, grounding, multimodality, cognitive pragmatics, cognitive poetics, humor, and linguistic synaesthesia, among others; • Interfaces between cognitive linguistics and other areas of linguistic study, including cultural linguistics, linguistic typology, figurative language, signed languages, gesture, language acquisition and pedagogy, translation studies, and digital lexicography; • New directions in cognitive linguistics, demonstrating the relevance of the approach to social, diachronic, neuroscientific, biological, ecological, multimodal, and quantitative studies. The Routledge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics is an indispensable resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students, and for all researchers working in this area.

Spatial perception and cognition is fundamental to human abilities to navigate through space, identify and locate objects, and track entities in motion. Moreover, research findings in the last couple of decades reveal that many of the mechanisms humans employ to achieve this are largely innate, providing abilities to store cognitive maps for locating themselves and others, locations, directions and routes. In this, humans are like many other species. However, unlike other species, humans can employ language in order to represent space. The human linguistic ability combined with the human ability for spatial representation apparently results in rich, creative and sometimes surprising extensions of representations for three-dimensional physical space. The present volume brings together over 20 articles from leading scholars who investigate the relationship between spatial cognition and spatial language. The volume is fully representative of the state of the art in terms of language and space research, and points to new directions in terms of findings, theory, and practice.

Contributors from different disciplines and schools of thought cover topics such as meaning, truth, form of a semantic theory, and natural logic in this book, providing a comparative evaluation of the major new approaches to semantics for natural language. The contributors discuss the different theories and attempt to justify or criticize them, disagreements and points of contact with others, problem areas, and suggestions for future development.

In recent years, the Cognitive Grammar account of language and mind has become an influential framework for the study of textual meaning and interpretation. This book is the first to bring together applications of Cognitive Grammar for a range of stylistic purposes, including the analysis of both literary and non-literary discourse. Demonstrating the diverse range of uses for Cognitive Grammar, chapters apply this framework to diverse text-types including poetry, narrative fiction, comics, press reports, political discourse and music, as well as exploring its potential for the teaching of language and literature in a range of contexts. Combining cutting-edge research in cognitive, critical and pedagogical stylistics, New Directions in Cognitive Grammar and Style showcases the latest developments in this field and offers new insights into our experiences of literary and non-literary texts by drawing on current understandings of language and cognition.